From The Secretary

by Dennis Whimp

It was with some excited anticipation that I entered the Westpac Bank to pick up a Rotorua Vintage Car Club item from the safe deposit box. These boxes are being closed and shifted to Auckland. What was it that was so valuable that it was in the bank vault? It was a long wait as two management staff were required to open the vault and one had just popped out on other business. They were in the vault for about 15 minutes which only further heightened my anticipation. Finally, there it was. A long thin envelope deposited on 16 Dec 1977 by Roger Nelson, Treasurer and Syd Halliday, Secretary. It was the original deed of lease between the Rotorua County Council and the Rotorua Vintage and Veteran Car Club Inc. Our club signatories were B Rogers, Chairman, plus Roger and Syd. The Council signatory was John Keaney. The lease was for 33 years at $10 per year. Among the interesting conditions of lease is the direction that the buildings shall not be used for dancing. I never thought that doing the hokey-cokey would get us in trouble. The lease was renewed in 2010 for a period of 20 years, still with the no dancing clause, so we may have to wait until 2030 before we can start dancing. I loved the Swap Meet and so did most of the attendees. A couple of stall holders told me during the clean-up that it was the best Swap Meet they had been to and that they had excellent sales. It was a real opportunity to catch up with many out of towners who we don’t normally see. But the downside was at least 4 of our helpers including the writer went down with Covid in the week following. I am putting it down to coincidence rather than the Swap Meet. Our 50th Anniversary celebration dinner is on the 27th of this month. There are a number of past members coming and there will be the out of town Sulphur City Rally attendees, so PLEASE WEAR YOUR NAME BADGES. 50 year continuous membership awards will be presented to Andy Bainbridge, Jim Maud, Roger Nelson, Bill Skelton,